power outlet mod (charge your cellphone while parked!)

power outlet mod (charge your cellphone while parked!)

After intensely studying the 2004 Corolla Electrical Diagrams book, I've figured out a really easy way to get the rear power point to stay hot after turning the car off. Please note this only works for the one inside the armrest/storage bin behind the shifter, and not the cig lighter port in front.

I don't have a digicam for pictures, but hopefully someone who's willing to try this can verify my instructions and post some pictures.

Tools:
small skinny flathead screwdriver
tiny piece of a credit card or other suitable padding
skinny arms


First, remove the airvent on the extreme right side of the dashboard. This is easily pried off with a skinny flathead screwdriver and there are no screws holding it in.

This is done so that you'll have access to the top of the junction box above the glove compartment. Once you remove the vent, if you look through the opening towards the left, you'll see it there with some "Toyota/Denso" relays sticking out the top.

There should be three relays plugged in there in a line, though you'll probably only be able to see the nearest one. That's the TAIL relay, and you don't want to mess with that one. The one we're interested in is the next one to its left (away from you), the P/POINT relay. Also note that there will be a vacant relay port to the right of the TAIL relay.

Reach through the vent opening and feel your way in there. If you can't reach in there, find someone with skinny wrists and arms to reach in there and pull that relay out. It's a simple friction plug so it shouldn't require much, if any force. Go ahead and take it out. You can test to make sure that's the one by turning the ignition switch to ACC and trying to plug something into the power point. Without the relay plugged in, the power point should be dead.

Now that you have the relay, what you want to do is short the two larger copper connectors. You could even do this by taking a paper clip or something similar and shorting those ports on the junction box. It's kinda hard to see in there, though, so I opted to pry the relay open and "fix" it.

The black cover on the relay can be pried off with your skinny screwdriver. There are grooves where it meets the white base to make it easy.

This reveals the relay's pretty simple internals. Basically it's a switch which is closed when current flows through an electromagnet. If you look toward the base, you'll see where the switch contacts are. There's a very small gap between them and you can easily push them closed and feel the light spring action that pulls them apart.

What I did was simply take something non-conductive to stuff under the springy contact to force the switch closed. A tiny piece of a plastic card worked perfectly. Just stuff it in there and make sure it's thick enough to keep the contacts firmly together, and small enough so that you can slip the black relay casing back on.

Once you've "fixed" the relay, put the cover back on, and reach in the vent opening and plug it back in. Your power point should now work without having to turn the ignition switch. Test this out before putting the air vent back on.

Now charge your cellphone anytime you want!

Wouldnt it be a lot easier to simply turn the key into the ON position. This way the electrical system of the car is active, but the engine is not running, then you can charger your phone with the car off too...

I for one wouldnt charge my phone with the car off anyway. I doubt you would ever kill your battery, unless you made a big habbit of it, and you only drove your car for short 5 minute drives all the time, not giving the car battery enough time to charge.

But anyway, good work on the mod. Atleast you didnt do it the half ass way, you just rigged the relay to always be on, and you can easily reverse the mod too if you ever wanted, and i am a true beleiver in mods that are easily reversed, they are good for many reasons...

But then you'd have to leave the key in the car... :?

If I'm spending the day driving around between places and my cellphone charge is low, I like to plug it into the car charger and let it charge the whole time I'm out. It's not good for your phone to have the charging turn on and off all the time, though, which is what it was doing when I'd stop and get out to do what I needed to do. I'd rather leave the phone in the car to keep getting a steady charge.

Also, I like to use the opportunity when I go to a movie to leave the phone charging in the car while I see the movie. The phone is going to be turned off anyway.

I'm certainly not worried about running down the battery with it. I left the charger cable plugged into my old car all the time and never had a problem with it. Most cars leave the power point hot all the time. It's frustrating that Toyota chose to turn it off with the car off. I just decided to do something about it.

And yes, the mod is easily reversed and does no damage to any parts. You can just unfix the relay and it'll be exactly like stock again.

Ok for some reason i thought you said you had to have the key turned to the ACC position for this to work, so thats why i thought it was kinda stupid. But i gues i read something wrong. Im just not in the same situation as you, i barely use my cell so i dont need to charge it much, so i just dont see if from your view.

But its still a good mod. And well executed.

electrical diagrams

Where could i get my hands on one of those 2004 corolla electrical diagrams books?

Thanks for the tip. I just did this and it worked great. Only problem I had was that as I pulled out the relay I slipped out of my fingers and I dropped it. I had to remove the glove compartment to find it. I took a few pictures of the procedure if anyone is interested.

Brian